Neuromarketing - giving traditional mktg a leg-up

Consumers are inundated with marketing messages across different platforms in traditional media and new media. Everybody is talking about new media in terms of Internet, mobile, in-store marketing, and more. With new media, the bar to reach consumers effectively in today’s increasingly cluttered platforms has been raised exponentially.

Neuromarketing, a new scientific concept evolved over time, has paved the way for marketers to add a more meaningful dimension to the field of marketing research. In simple words, it is a scientific technique used to measure consumers’ subconscious responses to stimuli.

“The fact is neurological testing has the ability to tease out findings that escape detection by traditional research methods. It can help improve effectiveness across all platforms of marketing,” explained Dr AK Pradeep, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, NeuroFocus Inc, the world’s leading neuromarketing firm, which was acquired by Nielson Company in May this year.

Reaching the Subconscious LevelTraditional market research methodologies cannot access this subconscious level, but there is an increasing relevance of understanding consumers’ unstated needs and desires in the domestic and international marketplace. Today’s marketers want to delve much more deeply into how consumers respond at the subconscious level of the mind to brands, products, packaging, in-store marketing and advertising.

The reason that measurement of consumers’ deep subconscious responses is so important and valuable for marketers is that as much as 95 per cent of all decisions are made at the subconscious level - including critical marketing objectives such as initial product interest, purchase intent, product pricing and brand loyalty.

An example of product pricing in neuromarketing tells you the range of price points a specific product or service can command and still be found acceptable by the consumer. It can pinpoint the exact price along that spectrum that earns consumers’ strongest response.

Mapping the BrainIn the words of Dr Pradeep, “It is the most accurate, reliable and actionable forms of marketing research, clients are increasingly turning to it for a wide variety of reasons.” In March this year, NeuroFocus launched ‘Mynd’, a neuromarketing technology designed to capture brainwave activity, in New York. “Mynd is the world’s first wireless, ‘dry’-EEG neurological testing headset that measures across the full brain. This breakthrough technology promises to advance market research,” he added.

For the first time, market researchers will be able to capture the highest quality data on consumers’ deep subconscious responses in real time wirelessly, revolutionising mobile in-store market research and media consumption at home.

The technology has been endorsed by the European Tools for Brain-Computer Interaction consortium (TOBI).

By gaining mobility without sacrificing the technology, the lightweight, sleekly-designed Mynd opens up new testing environments to consumers beyond the lab, such as the home, outdoor venues, movie theaters, shopping malls, and auditoriums with data being streamed to platforms, including the iPad, iPhone and other smart devices.

NeuroFocus is in the process of manufacturing Mynd headsets and running tests on them. They have testing laboratories in the US, the UK/ Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, and the Middle East.